Shifting Generations

My family made the “over the river and through the woods” journey this past weekend to grandmother’s house, this time for the grilled hot dogs of Labor Day rather than the turkey feast of late November. While it was a chance to get away for a few days, the weekend also dared me to consider the passing of time, symbolic of the changing of the generational guard.

The signs seemed obvious to me. My youngest son brought The Girlfriend to the unofficial family reunion, while my oldest son, daughter-in-law, and the lovely Madelyn Simone were welcomed into the newly purchased house of my niece, who has recently returned to her hometown to become a first-time homeowner. Watching the cousins horse around in the pool, my mind flashed back to the days when my boys were flailing away on top of the chicken fights instead of taking the bottom assignment.

It feels odd to me, this generational shift, but not unwelcome. I like the image writer Annie Dillard extends to us: “Ours is a planet sown in beings. Our generations overlap like shingles.” I’m caught in the overlap, still the daughter to my mother, but also the parent to my sons and a blessed grandmother as well. Yes, the family dynamics are shifting,

A shifting of the generations also requires us to embrace loss. When we brought out the cake and homemade ice cream, a Streeter family tradition for summertime gatherings, the standard question was raised: OK, who has the next birthday? With a bit of hesitation, someone said, Pops. Yes, my dad was born on September 1, 1923, and our Labor Day gathering always included a chorus of Happy Birthday for my father.

He’s been gone nine years now, yet for a moment I expected to see him in his familiar chair at the dinner table, tipping up a bottle of home-brewed root beer. He loved his kids and grandkids dearly, and he would be so impressed with the progress ten-year-old Lucas is making with his clarinet, and would certainly be smitten with the charm of Madelyn, his first, and so far the only great-grandchild. I’m even guessing that Dad would have given in and played Monopoly the first time eight-year-old Noah asked. That’s who my dad was.

Though it’s been a number of years since Dad’s death, my visit to the proverbial homestead left me yearning for what Mitch Albom described in “For One More Day:” “Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.”

And yet in the midst of these pointed reminders of loss and the shifting sands of the generations, the joyful connections remain. The playful soccer game on the front lawn, the laughter in the pool, the ever-creative story-telling, all speak to the expansiveness of family. It’s times like these that cause us to say, “It’s good to be together.”

We expect to face the existential questions of life in the pale light of the stained glass windows, in the philosophy classroom, or on a solitary retreat. Yet just as often, loss, love and light come our way in the everyday, when we pause to recognize the tap on our shoulder or the wink of an eye.

I’m at risk of waxing poetic just now, so I’ll let the words of James Baldwin finish my thoughts today: “For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” Amen.